Talk:Twitter

Twitter Utilized for Citizen Journalism

(added 12/13/2011)

Of the many different aspects and uses for Twitter, one of them is giving regular citizens the ability to capture hyper-local news at any moment; giving their followers insight to what is happening in their communities at any moment. Rather than news organizations being the gatekeepers of what makes it on to the radio or television, twitter has made it possible for citizens to report the news and for the news organizations to follow-up on those leads.

A prime example of this would be the "Miracle on the Hudson." As the event occurred, there was a witness taking pictures on the ground as the plane crash landed in the river. That happened instantly. The first news organization on the scene, MSNBC, did not get on the story until 46 minutes later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robschwandt (talk • contribs) 17:17, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The Concept of Twitter

Dude, the concept is a few thousand years old, but not the site... posting events and inconsequential statements on walls by graffiti. such as, scratching in "I did my laundry" or "I baked a loaf of bread." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Krashlia (talk • contribs) 03:34, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The article doesn't seem to be suggesting it to be some totally original idea. This is what the article says about the origin of Twitter: "While sitting in a park on a children’s slide and eating Mexican food, Jack Dorsey introduced the idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate with a small group." SMS wasn't available 1000 years ago. Reach Out to the Truth 06:13, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

lalalalalalala — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.100.216.229 (talk) 23:16, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Asynchronous follow

I expected the concept of Asynchronous follow/Asymmetric follow or Asynchronous follow model to be describe in this article. Is there any reason for this? Webhat (talk) 11:11, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

• Added the stubs Asymmetric Follow and Asynchronous Follow. Webhat (talk) 11:11, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Allegations of trending censorship

Hi there, I included below text and references in the criticism section. This topic was covered on many other IT news sites too, slashdot and so on.

"In December 2010, several IT related news websites and blogs reported that twitter appeared to engage in censorship activities by impeding wikileaks related tweets from becoming trending topics, despite high numbers of tweets concerning wikileaks due to activities such as the United States diplomatic cables leak. " lalalalalala thanks, Phil 94.216.65.78 (talk) 14:57, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

added source from washingtonpost.com 94.216.65.78 (talk) 21:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

There's been news coverage about Occupy Wall Street's failure to trend, with the conclusion drawn that Twitter actively censored the hashtag (RT news story). I think this deserves a mention on the main page! Please also let me know if I'm doing something wrong, I'm brand new at editing.Onecallednick (talk) 21:54, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Twitter denied this in September after reports in the media.[1] Trends are about changes in the number of tweets posted, not the volume of tweets. Twitter says that it removes only "obscene" hashtags.[2] This is an area where the article could be expanded.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:17, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Ranking

The ranking section cited growth of 1,382% per month, which would amount to 1.1x10^16 percent growth in one year (growth of 1,382% means the next month the figure is 14.82 times as high. 14.82^12 for 12 month growth is 1.1x10^14 times, or 1.1x10^16 as a percent)

This seems like such an obviously absurd number that I took the liberty of correcting it, using the accompanying figures given of growth from 475,000 to 7,000,000, which amounts to 25% growth, as 1.25^12 * 475,000 is just about 7,000,000.

I am not in general a wikipedia editor, so I don't have a login and I'm sure I am not updating this entirely properly. I see it is a protected page anyway so someone will have to look it over before it is published.

--- Oops, I should have just changed the 'monthly growth' to 'annual growth', since the 1,382% figure is then correct and the other figures cited later in the sentence for comparison are also annual figures. I checked the Facebook growth on http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/07/02/facebook-now-growing-by-over-700000-users-a-day-updated-engagement-stats/, and the 250% is indeed a reasonable annual growth rate for facebook in that period. So I changed the entry to 1,382% annual growth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.54.96.130 (talk) 08:32, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Larry Young —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.54.96.130 (talk) 06:51, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Make it easier to find Twitter usage article

The daughter article Twitter usage has information that a reader of the main article might well find valuable, but the daughter article isn't very prominent. It's linked once in passing in a sentence buried in the "History" section. Many readers would overlook it.

I'm not sure of the best way to deal with this. The general rule for "See also" listings is that they should not include articles linked in the text. Perhaps add a hatnote? or an additional link in the introductory section? JamesMLane t c 08:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Hashtags

I suggest include http://tagdef.com/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.84.132.44 (talk) 12:22, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

i suggest you get bent  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.58.220.73 (talk) 11:37, 24 July 2011 (UTC) 

Incorrectly marked?

"Twitter has gained popularity worldwide and is estimated to have 190 million users, generating 65 million tweets a day and handling over 800,000 search queries per day"

This is marked as clarification needed. Pretty basic stuff - what needs clarifying? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.26.69.255 (talk) 18:34, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Change of Technology

Twitter does not use Ruby anymore, but Java (and the netty framework) instead to increase performance by factor 3: http://engineering.twitter.com/2011/04/twitter-search-is-now-3x-faster_1656.html

78.52.142.254 (talk) 09:21, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Noah Glass

He set up his account before Evan Williams.

Twitter’s Evan Williams Apologizes ... saying "It's true that @Noah never got enough credit for his early role at Twitter. Also, he came up with the name, which was brilliant."

--85.179.195.144 (talk) 10:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Noah Glass

Hi. An editor removed all mention of Noah Glass here on April 21. Evan Williams said Noah came up with the name. So kindly keep his name in this article, or explain why not. Thank you. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:59, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Growth

Hello.

Some confusion in the article. Here's the start of the section on "Growth".

"The company experienced rapid growth. It had 400,000 tweets posted per quarter in 2007. This grew to 100 million tweets posted per quarter in 2008."

The section goes on a bit like this in much the same vein.

But what the section is writing about is not the growth of the company. Rather, it's writing about the growth of the service.

Not the same thing, is it?

By the way, let's stick to plain English for the benefit of the readers. It should be "each quarter", not "per quarter". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.148.235.4 (talk) 20:17, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Expansion of the "Reception" Section

As it currently stands, the articles reception section sites a single review from 2006. Twitter has become a massive social media engine, commonly suggested throughout the sources to have up to 200 million users, and the reception section could cite some more critical responses. Either that, or the removal of the uninformative section completely, as it is incredibly lacking in information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.187.249.48 (talk) 07:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Archives

Are tweets archived forever on the Twitter website? in practice, I could not get past a few dozen pages of any twitter account (the siteseemed to block). Is it the case that there is a URL for any tweet, but it can not be retrived in practice? I think it's an important "feature" of twitter that is worth mentionning, where contrary to fora, you can not (easily) reach the last or first page of a thread. Lerichard (talk) 08:54, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Twitter and the law

Some people have been talking about Twitter boss Tony Wang's recent comment that Twitter would hand over details of users to the authorities as something new, when it is not. Twitter's terms of service make clear that users accept the jurisdiction of the State of California when they sign up for an account. Twitter is not a legal free-for-all, any more than Wikipedia is, and in the light of current controversies the article could say more on this issue.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 10:59, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Current Status: Down?

What is this supposed to mean? Twitter is not unavailable at the moment. Further, unless I am misunderstanding what this line is about, this doesn't seem to be encyclopedic data to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrazharLn (talk • contribs) 01:28, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Removed. This part of the infobox should not be filled in for routine technical problems.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 02:30, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is silly. Just because a site is down for a few hours doesn't mean folks have to rush to Wikipedia and edit the infobox of the article. Geez! You'd think people thought it was the end of the world or something. They do the same thing over at Fark when that site goes down, too. WTF? (talk) 02:38, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Recent reversions about the definition of "active" user

There has been a number of reversions regarding the definition of the term "active user" of Twitter. In the citation provided the term "active" is qualified and is used in scare quotes as "active", therefore it does not have the regular meaning of the dictionary definition as opposite of *inactive* or *unused*. Further I quote from the citation provided for the new definition:

But it turns out that Twitter doesn't actually count a user as "active" until they are following many more than 8 accounts.

and

That moment happens when users follow 30 accounts, and when one-third of the people they follow also follow them back. So, how many such "active" Twitter users are there? Less than 21 million. Our source's API data shows that there are 21 million accounts on Twitter following 32 or more accounts. Some subset of these accounts are also being followed by 10 accounts.

You will notice that the citation itself uses the adjective "active" in scare quotes. Further there are other such grades of "active" accounts described in the citation according to the number of followers of an account. There is also a graph included in the citation where it is mentioned that only half of Twitter accounts follow two or more people, 15% follow more than fifty etc. This makes the definition of *active* as proposed to be used in the infobox completely confusing and misleading. Therefore we cannot use this citation in the article because it is based on a non-standard definition of the term "active". The number of 200 million users supported by the BBC citation should remain in the infobox because it is better understood and less misleading. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 17:29, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

And another point: The field "Users" in the infobox is linked to Registered user which means that for the purposes of the infobox only the number of users who registered an account with Twitter is required and not any type of unclearly defined "active user". Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 19:10, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Fail Whale, Jesus...

Why isn't it explained? "Oh yeah, the Fail Whale is a picture of a whale being netted away by birds whenever the system is down...because...THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE!!!" Why on God's green Earth would a complacent looking aquatic mammal being abducted from the sea indicate with any degree of appropriateness, the server's bandwidth being maxed out? It is so far beyond absurd it's scary. Legions of unemployed hipster d-bags LOVING the Fail Whale, sticking it on t-shirts, posters, worshipping this thing, and not a single one of them has the first clue what it represents. But they can all rattle off the wiki facts. "Oh Fail Whale is an illustration by Yiying Lu." Like anyone has ever heard of this person. Just drop the name like it's Picasso or Matisse. No dbags, when you mention a name that has absolutely no notability whatsoever, except for the very thing you're describing, you say "Fail Whale is an illustration by Yiying Lu, a graphic design student in Sidney with no prior professional experience." It's not like she'd done ANYTHING before she drew a whale. But more to the point, why to they worship something they can't even explain? Well done lemmings. Cutesy Asian graphical style, absurdism or irony, and ANY association with social media (because, YEAH, that's a GOOD thing!), and that's all it takes. My God I wish I lived in a time where I could actually be proud of my generation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.55.246.132 (talk) 21:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Ask and ye shall receive... According to three articles, the artist, Yiying Lu, uploaded the photo to iStockPhoto, a royalty-free art repository, in 2006. It was "found and licensed by Biz Stone" sometime in either 2006 or 2007. The image was originally titled "Lifting a Dreamer" and was created as a gift for the artist's friends overseas. The whale represented a birthday wish, and the birds were its messengers. The Fail Whale's prevalence in fashion may have originated at a Mashable event where Tom Limongello, an early Twitter user, debuted a Fail Whale t-shirt he made himself. Afterward, he made more and sent a box of them to Twitter's offices. I didn't find any information about why this particular image was chosen as an analogy for server failure since the articles mostly focused on the artist and the image's later popularity. The whale may represent the heavy load of the server and the birds could be Twitter trying to keep it afloat. OhSqueezy (talk) 15:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Add Twitter account of the U.S. broadcaster Fox News hacked ...

Add Twitter account of the U.S. broadcaster Fox News hacked, with a series of messages posted. (BBC) (AP via The Sydney Morning Herald) (CNN) 99.181.152.134 (talk) 18:48, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

There are some WP:NOTNEWS issues here, I'm not sure about adding this at the moment, what do others think? The main issue involved is site security.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:09, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

grammatical error

This page is semi protected so being anonymous I cannot correct the grammatical error in the last paragraph of the features section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.251.43.52 (talk) 14:14, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Could you be more specific about what is wrong?--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 14:32, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I have tweaked the paragraph that I think you are referring to. Barnabypage (talk) 14:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Twitter faster than radio or TV regarding the earthquake prediction

My addition about how Twitter users alerted other Twitter users -- with a reference -- was deleted on the grounds that radio or TV could have alerted people just as quickly. I disagree. They didn't. Radio and TV is as fast a medium as Twitter, possibly faster, in terms of transmission time. But the problem with mass media such as TV and radio is that they do not have tens of thousands of users spread over a diverse geographic area -- which Twitter does have. These people figured out what was going on and spread the message quickly. By the time a radio station figured out that an earthquake was happening, and then broadcast it, the seismic wave would have passed. Twitter beat radio to the punch on this one; users were alerted -- it's documented. This suggests that it is possible for a potential future Twitter application to alert thousands of people rather instantly if a similar earthquake happens (ie land-based, epicenter near to the surface). It could lessen the reaction time (giving people more precious seconds to exit structures e.g.). So what we have here is a well-documented case of earthquake prediction which may lead to an application or technology (IPad? Twitter? etc) which alerts people to more serious quakes, or to other hazards in which public reaction time is critical, and save lives. It's definitely not trivia.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:06, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

There is WP:NOTNEWS and WP:RECENTISM here. Any earthquake will pick up live TV and radio coverage very quickly, so comparisons with Twitter are not of major importance. Much of the argument above is WP:OR.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 13:54, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. Obviously Wikipedia is not a newspaper but I believe that this is not a fleeting event which will be forgotten in a year's time as per recentism. Further, the "original research" issue applies to the content we include in an article, not necessarily our reasons for including such information; for example, if the "no original research" rule could be applied to reasons, then I could as easily argue that removal of the content was an instance of "original research". And the content itself is clearly not original research but a valid account from a reliable source. Further, the story -- that Twitter reports of the earthquake before people felt the shaking -- this is a first in the area of earthquake prediction with obvious potential for future applications with life-saving implications. Can you provide any reliable sources which showed that radio or TV coverage reached people before they felt the seismic waves? There are documented reports with reliable sources indicating that Twitter did. This earthquake did little destruction or caused no deaths (as far as I know) but a potential future one in the world could have a huge impact, possibly saving the lives of the most precious creatures on Earth which are in my view are Wikipedians like us. Last, it's my personal policy not to keep reverting reverts, but it is my suggestion that you or others restore the deleted content, that's all.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:50, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

(moving the disputed section here for reference purposes:) When a substantial earthquake hit the east coast of the United States in August 2011, Twitter users near the quake's epicenter twitted about the earthquake to fellow users in places like New York, who read the reports of the earthquake before experiencing the shake of the waves themselves a few seconds later.<ref name=twsO27/> The speed of communication was faster than the earthquake's seismic waves.<ref name=twsO27>{{cite news |title= East Coast residents read about the D.C. earthquake before feeling it themselves. |publisher= ''Hollywood Reporter'' |quote= When a 5.9 earthquake hit near Richmond, Virginia, on Tuesday, New York residents read about the quake on Twitter when, 30 seconds later, they felt the quake themselves. |date= Aug 23, 2011 |url= http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/earthquake-twitter-users-learned-tremors-226481 |accessdate= 2011-08-15 }}</ref>--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:01, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Amount of twitter users

Twitter announced in September that they hit the 100 million user mark. I guess this source is more trustworthy than the BBC interview which talk about 200 Million users. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.151.110.183 (talk) 10:05, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The source above says "Our 100 million active users" which is a notable qualifier. This may mean that some accounts are inactive, e.g. many Facebook accounts have only a handful of posts. The BBC article is used as a cite in the article and gives a figure of "around 200 million users". If Twitter is taken at its word, this means that around half the accounts are inactive. Maybe the article should point this out.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:33, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The BBC article makes no mention of the 380 Million figure quoted in the article and info box, only 200 Million is mentioned. HardCopy (talk) 12:09, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

This was adjusted to tally with the figure in the lead section. The figure of 380 million may have been a misunderstanding of the source here, which says: "Scientists at Indiana University collected the conversations of 1.7 million Twitter users over six months, a total of 380 million tweets".--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 13:40, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Criticism section

This article has a criticism section that is just a laundry list of complaints and a dumping ground for other information. In any case, notable praise and coverage of Twitter has been rather sidelined; the 2009 Iran election gets four words, Ryan Giggs two lines, and the Twitter Earthquake not at all. For comparison, Jon Stewart commenting about people tweeting during the SotU gets almost a paragraph. Does this really conform to UNDUE? Sceptre ^(talk) 14:45, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems some really important information is being left out of articles on Twitter. I've seen that paragraphs relating to the censorship by twitter of Wikileaks has been removed. I think this information is essential to give people the whole picture of what Twitter is about. Since there is an article about censorship OF twitter, perhaps there needs to be an article about censorship BY twitter, especially since the criticism section has been removed. I think a well-organized criticism section or area specifically dealing with Twitter's detractors is an important piece of the picture.Onecallednick (talk) 21:30, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Logo History

I think something should be mentioned about the history of the logo, especially the adoption of the blue bird. The original twitter logo was just a stylized "twitter". According to this article from the developers of one of the first twitter desktop clients: http://gedblog.com/2007/05/11/twitter-identity-transference-syndrome-twits/ the blue bird icon was an original concept of theirs which quickly became the standard style for twitter clients. Even the new twitter logo has adopted this. This is surely a great example of something. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.53.218.74 (talk) 00:48, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Twitter and free speech

What Twitter has said is that it will hand over details of user accounts when required to do so by a court of law in California. None of the sourcing talks about other countries having less freedom of speech than the United States. This is personal commentary and analysis. Wikipedia has handed over details of user accounts in response to a court order, see Talk:Façonnable.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:58, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

If you actually read the sources, you will see that they have said that they will hand over details of user accounts to authorities, when instructed to do so by courts in less-free countries like Britain. The 'Mr. Monkey' situation was unique in that it involved something that might have been actual libel- rather than failing to pander to near-prehistoric laws set up to stop gentleman shooting each other- and that it was actually handled in California courts. Nevard (talk) 02:55, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

The Telegraph source and the others say that Twitter would do this when required to do so. Twitter's Terms of Service are clear on this issue: "These Terms and any action related thereto will be governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to or application of its conflict of law provisions or your state or country of residence. All claims, legal proceedings or litigation arising in connection with the Services will be brought solely in San Francisco County, California, and you consent to the jurisdiction of and venue in such courts and waive any objection as to inconvenient forum." In other words, Twitter would not hand over a UK user's details without an order made in a US court, which is what happened with Mr Monkey. As the BBC's correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones points out here, there is nothing unusual in US websites handing over data in response to court orders. Twitter's Terms of Service are designed to rule out the forum shopping that sometimes occurs in the London courts. Also, please find the part where any of the sources say that other countries are less free than the United States. This is pure WP:OR.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:01, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Asking for a citation for the fact that the UK lacks any protection for freedom of speech is kind of like asking for a citation that gravity tends to make stuff around the world fall downwards- but the Indy source is perfectly good for that. And I'm quite confused about what you're trying to claim based on the TOS- their compliance with California law does not prevent them from disclosing information to Chinese or UK government officials to aid persecutions, as they have clearly stated they will. Nevard (talk) 17:53, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Although I am not a lawyer, Twitter's TOS make it clear that only State of California Law is recognized by Twitter in disputes over user accounts (the Service). Twitter is not going to hand over customer account details in a way that would violate its own TOS. While it is disappointing that London has become one of the forum shopper's dream destinations, Twitter is smart enough not to play along with this. I still can't understand where you are getting the idea that Twitter would hand over its private data on the say so of a court in the UK, because "legally required" is based on what is set out in the TOS. Also, soapboxing about the shortcomings of UK law is beyond the scope of the article. The view of legal experts is that Twitter would reject any attempt to impose British privacy law on constitutional grounds.[3]--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:24, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

How about actually reading the sources you have removed from the article. Twitter has clearly stated that they will comply with court orders from less-free countries like the UK, despite the fact they are not legally required to do so in their home jurisdiction. Nevard (talk) 19:13, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

• Gagging orders: Twitter prepared to hand over user data (The Daily Telegraph). This says ""legally required" to do so. Experts had previously assumed that people who breached gagging orders on Twitter were protected from legal reprisals because the website is outside the jurisdiction of British courts." There is nothing new here. This is what happened with Mr Monkey. No reference is made to the UK being less-free, which seems to be something of a personal hobby horse.
• Twitter chief hints he may have to divulge users' names (The Independent). This refers to "illegal activity". A bomb threat etc is a criminal offence, while libel and privacy are covered by civil law. Tony Wang's statement on this issue was unclear, and the view of legal experts is that it is unlikely that Twitter would accede to requests that overrode First Amendment protected free speech. The Independent source is better suited to the article, but it would need to be balanced by the view of legal experts that the site might violate the US Constitution if it did this for speech that would be protected under US law. Tony Wang seems to have been making policy on the hoof when he said this, and it needs clarification. Quote from Jimmy Wales on this issue: "The US is going to be absolutely inflexible on this point. It is in the constitution," he said, referring to freedom of speech provisions".[4]--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:46, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Where do your 'legal experts' come from again? I appreciate that you probably have even less idea of what the First Amendment actually protects than most Americans, many of whom seem to think it protects a 'right' to post comments on other people's blog posts, but despite a couple hundred years of its meaning being perverted, it still starts "Congress shall make no law...". It has nothing to do with what private individuals or media companies choose to disclose- apart from giving them some protection from government. Nevard (talk) 23:55, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Neither of us is in a position to say what Twitter would do. The sourcing says "Despite the public statement by a senior Twitter executive it remains unclear if the social-network forum will hand over the names of people who used it to identify Ryan Giggs for using a super-injunction to prevent the publication of his identity as the footballer alleged to have had an affair with Imogen Thomas, of Big Brother."[5]. The prevailing view of legal experts is summarized by Mark Stephens, who says "‘If you want to sue Twitter, you have to go to San Francisco,” he added, referring to the company’s headquarters in the US. ‘Any attempt to enforce English privacy or libel law will not be accepted in the USA."[6] Twitter would risk violating its own Terms of Service and US law if it handed over private data on the word of a non-US court.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 03:29, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I await the great citations that I'm sure you have for "Twitter would risk violating its own Terms of Service and US law if it handed over private data on the word of a non-US court." Or do you not have anything besides your knowledge as an internet lawyer that indicates that "Tony Wang, head of Twitter operations in Europe, suggested the social network would accede to a UK court order to divulge names" is in any way misrepresentative of what senior Twitter executives have said about their disregard for the privacy of their users in less free countries? Nevard (talk) 04:24, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I still await the great citations that you have for the statement that the UK is "less free" than the United States. There are clear differences between libel and privacy law in the US and the UK, which was one of the root causes of the Giggs controversy. The wording of the headline in The Independent, "Twitter chief hints he may have to divulge users' names" is accurate, and stops a good way short of saying that Twitter would hand over private data without an order in a US court. The words "hint" and "may" should not be translated into "Twitter will definitely do this".--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 04:49, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that would be the lack of freedom of speech where Britain used to be, as noted in the BBC article you added as a reference. Nevard (talk) 08:50, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

"Different libel and privacy laws" would be more accurate. As this BBC article points out, Americans were amazed by the Giggs brouhaha, which would be protected speech in the USA. There are more important parallels with Li Zhi (dissident), who was jailed in China after Yahoo allegedly handed over details of his account.[7] Yahoo was able to do this because it has a subsidiary in Hong Kong. Since Twitter is based in California, there was some surprise when Tony Wang suggested that it would comply with orders from non-US courts. It would be useful to clarify Twitter's position on this issue, but since Wang refused to comment directly on the Giggs case, the current sourcing is as good as it gets.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:14, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you seriously under the impression that Yahoo 'was able' to hand over information because they have a subsidiary in Hong Kong, rather than that they 'did hand information over', just as they would be free to do in the US, because they would be subject to subject to pressure from the occupational government of China if they did not do so? If so, why do you edit articles that have anything to do with the law? Nevard (talk) 23:15, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ This is wandering off topic. Li Zhi was jailed after a request made within Chinese jurisdiction. I am not going to speculate on how Twitter or Yahoo would react to an order from a foreign court.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:29, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I should hope not- it's entirely unnecessary, as they have indicated that they would comply with such an order. Nevard (talk) 10:09, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The wording of the edit here is cautious and sticks closely to what the sourcing says (almost word for word, in fact). It is designed to avoid giving any sort of legal advice on what Twitter would do if it received an order from a foreign court to identify one of its users. The words "hint", "may" and "suggest" in The Independent cite combine to produce something a good deal less than a firm indicator of what would happen in this scenario. The received wisdom from the Mr Monkey case was that a court order in the US would be needed, but this was significantly altered by Tony Wang's statement. Some of the mainstream media sourcing on this issue is itself unclear. There is nothing altogether new in what Tony Wang said in May 2011, as Twitter's Privacy Policy already says: "Law and Harm: We may preserve or disclose your information if we believe that it is reasonably necessary to comply with a law, regulation or legal request; to protect the safety of any person; to address fraud, security or technical issues; or to protect Twitter's rights or property." What is harder to say (from the sourcing) is how Twitter would react to a direct order from a foreign court. This remains uncharted waters, unless further cases similar to Mr Monkey emerged and were reliably reported.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 10:35, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you seriously suggesting legal advice is involved here? Legal experts agree that Twitter is under no obligation to disclose information based on foreign court orders. Twitter executives have indicated that they would do so regardless. The 'Mr. Monkey' case is irrelevant, as it involved a California court order. Nevard (talk) 00:13, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Twitter executives have not indicated that they "would do so regardless". The Independent and Twitter's privacy policy both say that they may disclose user account information in response to a legal request. Right from the start here, there has been an attempt to make the sourcing say something that it does not actually say. The wording in the article sticks closely to what the sourcing says on this issue, to avoid any confusion or giving a misleading impression.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:31, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

potential United States presidential election, 2012 WSJ resource

• Many Twitter Users Back President Obama, Poll Shows 14.December.2011 97.87.29.188 (talk) 23:31, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

It's Bijan Sabet not Binjan Sabet

"...and Binjan Sabet resigned from Twitter's Board of Directors." "...and Bijan Sabet resigned from Twitter's Board of Directors."

http://bijansabet.com/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.138.147.67 (talk) 07:37, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

• Y Done--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:08, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

New login page screenshot

Shouldn't we change the screenshot of Twitter to the new login page? Kjinho (talk) 20:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

File:Twitter homepage.png in the infobox seems to be up to date.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm talking about the brand new login pages that came with the "fly Twitter". http://imgur.com/a/geyb9 Kjinho (talk) 18:14, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

http://fly.twitter.com/ was launched on 8 December 2011.[8] It is described as "the biggest shake-up of the site since its launch". Some more coverage here. At the moment, fly.twitter does not seem to be the default interface, but it is mentioned in the article.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 20:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I see, it isn't the default interface. Kjinho (talk) 02:28, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Although fly.twitter was launched in December 2011, PC users do not see it when they log in via twitter.com. It is unclear whether Twitter plans to make this the default interface for all users at some stage, or when this may happen. The blog post at the launch said "We’ll be rolling out the redesigned Twitter over the next few weeks".--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:47, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

That said, Twitter does seem to have changed the system for the login page. There appear to be three new versions (screenshot) and you get a different one each time. If everyone is seeing this, the screenshot in the infobox should be changed.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:41, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Subject?

Is this article about the website or the company? It seems to be about both. Why not split it? --69.169.167.47 (talk) 07:47, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

It's about Twitter as an entity. The company and website are connected, so why should it be necessary to split the article? And, if we do, should we do the same for Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.?--Rollins83 (talk) 14:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

About what it is said Twiter is...

In the Wiki article it says that Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service. When you go to the twitter about page at no time does Twitter call itself a social networking service. Twitter says that it is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas, opinions and news about what you find interesting. That at the heart of Twitter are small bursts of information. Also according to this article http://www.inc.com/tech-blog/is-twitter-a-social-network.html on inc.com Kevin Thau, Twitter's Vice President of business and corporate development made the distinction during a presentation at Nokia World 2010. According to Thau, Twitter is not a social network. It's for news, content and information. The article does say it believes it meets the definition of a social network but Twitter says it is not. So I think for this article to be accurate it should go by what Twitter calls itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pirate497 (talk • contribs) 20:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)